


While the Corpses of Who We Were Go Down

by Bluerain1984



Series: Strangers in a Strange Land [16]
Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Arguments, F/M, Gen, M/M, New Arc Interlude, Two Idiots Who Won't Do What They Need To Do, Verbal Fights, budding friendship, failing marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 17:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12113874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluerain1984/pseuds/Bluerain1984
Summary: 'Mary gave Joseph a glare. “Just get out before you get me kicked out of my room, Joseph. This is over. We are over!” '





	While the Corpses of Who We Were Go Down

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I thank you for sticking through the first portion of the series! Don't worry, Damien and Robert will return, and I'll give you more delicious smut in future pieces. But this one is needed to sort of bridge the gap, as they say. So, without further ado, let's go.

_“I’m leaving.”_

Joseph leaned forward, elbows on his knees and head propped on the backs of his joined hands. He stared at nothing, though one would think he were looking for something in the darkness of his coffee. While the rest of the Coffee Spoon’s patrons milled about, pleasant music filling the air around him, he heard and saw nothing. All he could do was go back to just six days ago, when Mary left him.

_“What?” he had said. “You can’t leave? Especially drunk!”_

_“Watch me,” she had said, hoisting the suitcase off of their bed and extending its handle to let the luggage roll behind her. As she approached him, he tried to block the door._

_“Mary, let’s talk about this, please?”_

_“And get more excuses? You throw lie after lie at me, Joseph, and I’m tired of the bullshit. MOVE.” Mary had punctuated the word with a shove at his shoulder. He went back, and she wedged herself in between him and the doorframe until she was out and past him, going to the stairs._

_“Then I’ll go!” Joseph had called._

_“And let you slink off to your fucking boat?” Mary had said. “Fuck that!”_

_“The kids will miss you!”_

_“The kids don’t give a shit about me.” She had descended the stairs at that point and she had the front door open. The suitcase sat at her feet. Joseph caught up, and grabbed her by one arm. “Let go of me, Joseph, or I swear to God!”_

_“Please, Mary, we can talk this out, I know it!”_

_“I’m DONE! I’ve told you I’m done, and I’m not changing my mind!” Mary had managed to yank her arm away from him, and was shaking her head as she screamed at him. “I tried to be the good fuckin’ wife and I tried to let it go, but I can’t! I CAN’T let it go! And I’m done being ignored and lied to and passed over and I’m done wrecking myself over you!”_

_“You’re done?” he had said. “_ You _are done?! What about me, Mary? What about me, living with this damn cross on my back for ten years, and no forgiveness or rest or anything? Why am I the one who is constantly stepped on because of my mistake?”_

_“BECAUSE!” she had shrieked._

_“DADDY NO!” Christina’s voice rang out. They’d turned, and there she was, practically flying across the round-about, Lucien calling for her to come back even as her siblings left the Cahns’ door to try and follow. The pink-clad girl had thrown herself at Joseph, her face a sopping mess of tears and snot. “Daddy don’t leave, please! Daddy! Daddy! Don’t go away again, Daddy!”_

_The look Mary had given him was a mix of grim satisfaction and regretful acceptance. She hadn’t even needed to say ‘I told you so’. Christina was weeping because it looked like Joseph was being kicked out again, and now Christian was coming to grab at his father’s pantleg and shirt, too. Chris had Crish in his arms, but he looked confused and scared, as well._

_“Daddy’s staying,” Mary announced to them then. “Mom’s hittin’ the road, kids.”_

“Joseph?” Mat’s voice said through the haze of memory. “Hey, Joseph, you okay?”

“What?” Joseph lifted his head, pulled out, for now, of the memory.

“I wanted to know if you were okay,” Mat said again. “You, um…haven’t touched your cup for an hour.”

“Oh,” Joseph reached for the cup, and took a long sip. Oh. Not even good coffee tasted right cold. He scrunched his mouth a bit before putting the mug back down. “I’m sorry. If I’m being an inconvenience, I can leave.”

“No,” Mat said, raising one hand as he used the other to help guide himself down onto the sofa beside Joseph. “It’s fine. Take your time. Whatever’s on your mind, it’s gotta be important, right?”

Joseph sighed. Mat was an awfully considerate man. Joseph turned slightly in his position to look at Mat, but left an elbow on his khaki covered knees, and used one hand, palm turned up now, to hold his head. “I’m just… I don’t know what to make of it. Even a week after she’s left, and I still… I just don’t know.”

“I don’t wanna step on your toes,” Mat said, “But what exactly happened? To hear the kids in the neighborhood tell it, Robert suplexed you onto your car, Damien saved you from his rampage, and then Mary decided to run off. I have no idea what went on in the middle of all that or how it connects…and if you don’t wanna tell me, I understand. Just, it’s kind of confusing.”

Joseph gave Mat a half-grin. “Long story, neighbor. Suffice to say, I made a big mistake, now Damien, Robert, and Mary are all angry, and I’m…just…here.”

“Well,” Mat said, “If you need to talk to someone, I’m just here, too.” The dreadlocked barista gave Joseph a warm smile before he stood up and went to the counter, apparently ready to help his green-haired, teenaged assistant, Pablo. Joseph watched them for a short time before he stood, leaving his cup on the coffee table to head out. He still had an errand to run.

* * *

 

Mary hadn’t driven. She wasn’t stupid. She knew it was a bad idea to drive drunk, or upset, or both. The day she left, she’d walked away from her husband and kids, she’d walked to the bus stop near the shops and gone across town to the Maple Bay Motel. She used the credit card she still had on her to pay for a ‘rent,’ and using the bus to get around town, washing the few clothes she’d packed at the Soap-N-Go laundry nearby yesterday. Earlier today, Mary started poking around for places that were hiring. If she was going to do this, she didn’t want to leech off Joseph more than was necessary before she could be fully independent.

She’d meant it. She was done with Joseph’s shit. And the first two nights she spent alone, she felt weightless. As if all those cares, the issues, the pain was finally coming off her. She’d slept the first day away, and hadn’t even gotten drunk on the second day until nearly seven o’clock. But after four days, Mary missed the use of her own car. She’d called Joseph to ask for it back, but he was still dealing with the kids. She told him she wanted it as soon as possible.

“You’re not going to come get it?” he’d asked.

“I said I was done. I’m not going back,” she’d insisted. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Fine… What room number?”

“203.”

“All right. I’ll…bring it Saturday.”

“Better.”

That was how she ended up here. Waiting for her damned husband to bring her car. She paced a bit at the window, occasionally moving the beige colored curtain to peek out at the parking lot below the second floor, looking for her car. When it finally appeared, she let out a long breath. Mary made sure she had her room key before she stepped out of the door.

She made her way down to meet Joseph in the parking lot, making sure to keep her face as cold as possible. It wasn’t hard, given the circumstances. Joseph held onto the keys in a fist.

“Gonna need those,” she said as she stopped about two steps away from Joseph and extended her hand.

“Can’t we talk about this?” Joseph asked.

“I’m done with talking to you. I’m done with the excuses, the blaming shit, and everything. Now give me my damn keys.” She gave her hand a small shake as she waited for him to hand the keys over. Joseph’s mouth was turned down in a set pout. His brown eyebrows were nearly touching in the middle of his forehead. Mary hated when he made that expression, but she wasn’t giving in to his damn pity-party-pout.

At last, the asshole gave her the keys.

“Bus stop’s over there,” Mary said before she turned around. She heard footsteps, hesitant at first, but then moving in time with her. She looked over her shoulder. “I said _leave_ , Joseph.”

“Mary, please,” Joseph begged again. “I don’t want you to stay at a hotel. I don’t want you to leave! Mary I—I miss you! Come home.”

“You _miss_ me?” Where did he get the gall to say that? Mary stopped walking half-way up the stairwell to turn and look Joseph. “What’s different now than before? I hardly stayed in that house anyway! I figured you’d be happy with me actually gone.”

“I’m not,” Joseph said. “I don’t like not knowing if you made it home safe. I get worried. Mary, I’m wracked with guilt about this, I really am! Please, just come back?”

“For what? Kids who like you more because you’re the ‘perfect dad’? The neighbors who either think I’m a total bitch or nuts? Even my best friends are pissed at me right now, Joseph. I don’t have anything to go back for. Tell me,” Mary leaned on the rail, “Tell me one thing you genuinely miss about me. And no bullshit. One thing.”

Joseph stared up at her before opening his mouth, and closing it again.

“You don’t even know.” She knew he wouldn’t have anything. When she had her back to him again, going back up the stairs, he finally said something.

“I miss _you_. I miss being with you, Mary…I… I miss our intimacy.”

Oh, what a load.

Mary stopped at the top of the stairs and raised an eyebrow at him. “We haven’t fucked in eight months. Try again.”

“I’ve been missing that for _years_ , Mary!” Joseph threw his arms out wide, then drew them in as he started coming up the stairs. “We had so much passion, once! We couldn’t get enough of each other! You used to look at me with so much love, so much—so much **_hunger_**! Where did that go?”

Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “I couldn’t take it, Joseph. I just couldn’t handle being a mom, okay? We were too fucking young for it. Too young to have a kid!”

“We were twenty-three!”

“THAT’S THE POINT!” she screamed as loud as she could. “I didn’t want to stop and give up everything! I still had shit I wanted to do! To try! But as soon as that fucking test came up, what happened? Good ol’ Pops,” she said with all the disdain she had for her father-in-law, “says it’s time for us to get married! And you, like the bitch you are, did as you were told!”

“It was the right thing! I loved you, Mary! I wanted a family with you!”

“You also wanted to wear leather and get drunk with me and cut off the sails on all the boats in the fucking bay!” As Mary yelled, she pointed toward said bay. “But what came first? Your shit-ass dad and whatever he said! You’re a bitch and a coward and a liar, Joseph! And I’m tired of it!”

“HEY,” a voice shouted at them from several doors down. “Shut the hell up or I’m calling the cops!”

Mary gave Joseph a glare. “Just get out before you get me kicked out of my room, Joseph. This is over. **_We_** are over!” She stomped her feet as hard as she could on her way to her room. Joseph continued to shout her name right to the point that she slammed the door behind her. She fixed all the locks in place, then placed her back at the door, leaning all her weight on it.

She waited to hear footsteps.

She waited for Joseph to start banging his fists on the door.

She waited for him to beg her to open up and come back home.

She heard nothing.

Mary crossed to the window and parted the curtains just a little. She looked along the walkway in front of the rooms. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t on the stairs, either. He was crossing across the parking lot, heading for the bus stop.

Joseph was… giving up.

Good! About fucking time! Mary stepped away from the curtains. She didn’t need him. She had her car. She had potential new jobs to check out. She didn’t need Joseph, or all his shit weighing her down anymore.

She really didn’t.

* * *

 

It felt like his head was in a fog. It creeped in at the corners of his eyes, pressed hard against the backs of his eyeballs. Joseph just couldn’t understand. He had been honest. He missed being with Mary, had missed her for so, so long! But he just couldn’t understand why she couldn’t have talked to him about this before. And he felt the weight of his own guilt, but Mary was just so intent on rubbing all the salt she had in her into his wounds that she wasn’t willing to listen to him, or forgive him. He was getting tired of it.

Scratch that. He _was_ tired of it.

He wasn’t going to continue to tear himself up about it anymore. If Mary was done, so was he.

 _For every time there is a season_. Everything had a beginning and an end. He had tried so hard to stick it through for the kids. He had wanted to so badly…

But he supposed it was time for this chapter to end.   
The bus came to its next stop in the line, bringing Joseph back to familiar places, within walking distance of home. He disembarked, and stuck his hands into his pockets as he considered where to go now.

_“Well, if you need to talk to someone, I’m just here, too.”_

Joseph stopped for a second.

He could really use a cup of coffee right now.

**Author's Note:**

> And a new player enters the field! Feel free to speculate on how Mat will play a part. I know, but I won't tell. Not yet XD
> 
> Comments and critiques give me fuel to write. Kudos make me smile ^.^  
> Feel free to follow me on justthefangirl.tumblr.com to see works in progress, listen to thoughts on things I may have, or just see me reblog random fandom garbage.


End file.
